U.S. Pat. No. 3,904,036 issued Sept. 9, 1975 and owned by the assignee of this invention discloses an enclosed bottle container in which the top panel is provided with hand gripping apertures to facilitate carrying the package.
The current trend toward packaging large numbers of primary packages such as one or two dozen items in a secondary container has resulted in a need for an improved carrying device for such packages. One example of a package having a carrying strap is disclosed in French patent application No. 7,825,707 filed Sept. 1, 1978. In this French patent application a carrying strap is disposed about the exterior of a package such as a carton formed of paperboard and the carrying strap is anchored in slits formed at the carton corners. In a modification of the invention of this French patent application, a carrying strap is inserted through opposed side walls and between two rows of packaged articles and is looped about the outer surfaces of these opposed walls and an interconnecting wall to form a carrying strap. Obviously the carrying straps of this French patent application are not securely related with the associated container and are very difficult to apply to the carton particularly in the case of the strap that must be inserted through opposed side walls and between adjacent rows of packaged items.